Sexism in Sport: ‘Taken seriously means being fairly criticised too’ — Aoife Lane

Progress has been made in women's sport but it is slow in places and others have been stubbornly resistant to it

Aoife Lane, founder and former chairperson of the Women's Gaelic Players' Association and the head of the Department of Sport and Health Science at Athlone Institute of Technology, makes the point that there are differences to note in the Irish and British landscapes. Photo by David Fitzgerald/Sportsfile

Progress is rarely linear. Transatlantic flight takes longer now than it did with Concorde, Donald Trump seems bent on taking the United States back to the Dark Ages, and the price of a mortgage now for a standard three-bed semi-D would make previous generations weep.

To skim over the story of women in sport this last five years is to imagine that we are fixed on a path towards equality, what with record crowds for Camogie and Ladies Football All-Irelands in Croke Park, the entirety of the women's World Cup shown live on TV, and the advent of new competitions across a variety of sports and backed by sponsors.

Progress has been made but it is slow in places and others have been stubbornly resistant to it. More alarming is the idea that some areas are showing signs of regression. So it appears in a recent survey carried out with elite female sportspeople in Britain by the BBC. This is the broadcaster's third such project since 2013 and by far the most extensive.

Almost half of those who contributed say their own governing body does not support women as they do men; 85% say the media isn't doing enough for female sports; 60% say fans expect different behaviour from their male and female sportspeople; 30% have been trolled on social media; and almost two-thirds have experienced some form of sexism in their sport.

That's a lot of bad news in one mouthful.

Aoife Lane, founder and former chairperson of the Women's Gaelic Players' Association and the head of the Department of Sport and Health Science at Athlone Institute of Technology, does make the point that there are differences to note in the Irish and British landscapes.

The dominant position of Gaelic games on the Irish landscape, and the greater preponderance of amateur athletes, are obvious divergences but there is still so much within the findings that are universal and which speak for the distance still to be travelled in the UK, Ireland and elsewhere.

“It doesn't shock me,” says Lane. “Your disposition is questioned when it comes to this because you want to be positive and appreciate all the good changes happening. That would be my nature but I am also aware of not being blinkered and realising there is a long way to go.

“I am impatient like a lot of people but I think that is a good thing. The rate of change is so slow and things like this have to ground people and make them ask, 'where are we at all?' It does feel that it gets a bit flowery sometimes but there is still a long journey to make.” 

What stood out for Lane was the lack of support across so many levels: the disparities in funding, the shortfall in support from their own governing bodies, the improvements the media can make despite all the efforts of campaigns such as 20x20.

If there was anything positive to be mined from the darkness then it was in the fact that these elite athletes have identified and highlighted these issues but here again comes a negative: 75% of those who had experienced sexism in their sport did not report it and that was up 23% from the figure in 2013.

Boil it down and there are double standards at play.

Not only is there a general sense that fans expect women to behave differently to men, their take is that the media feels the same. All this fits with surveys carried out by the WGPA soon after its founding which discovered that over two-thirds of their members did not feel respected as athletes by the general public.

“It is still lacking, not taken seriously,” Lane believes. “And taken seriously means being fairly criticised as well. The biggest insult to a female athlete is when you are pandered to a bit. That's improving, and you do have to be careful with tone in all this, but those statistics are quite strong.” 

That lack of respect manifests itself in a more insidious way too.

The trolling of female sportspeople is dealt with in detail by the BBC which ran candid first-person accounts from Welsh rugby player Elinor Snowsill, GB hockey's Susannah Townsend, and Charlton Athletic's Rachel Newborough. As Katrina Parrock explains on these pages, Ireland is not immune to this.

“What I have noticed is that a particular event will trigger it,” Lane says. “A few years ago there was the incident with Hannah Looney in the Camogie All-Ireland, the handshake thing, and that was very difficult for Hannah at the time. There was a backlash there.

“So if there is a trigger at all, it flares but on a day-to-day basis, it probably is minimal. There is such a small handful of players who would be that high-profile and an even smaller group of those who would be controversial in any way. I often see it more on websites and comments. There can be real shitty things there and you always think of the player who might be reading them.”